* When NewAssignment.Net first came across Voter Story we had some questions about the organizations involved and where the information went. As the site has been updated most of the important questions have been answered. You can now find their privacy policy and other relevant information. VoterStory is an innovative idea and considering the project was built in two weeks, it’s understandable that some kinks needed to be worked out. *

Some questions began to surface yesterday after we VoterStory.org Web Adlinked to VoterStory.org, a distributed voter protection effort led by EvolveStrategies and funded by Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Institute.

VoterStory.org offers concerned citizens a widget to post in their Web sites and blogs that instantly relays questionable incidents at the polls to voter protection organizations.

If you want to know which organizations and blogs support VoterStory.org, it’s easy to find out. VoterStory.org posts the names of organizations and blogs currently hosting their widget on its ‘about’ page.

But if you want to find out what organizations will have access to that data, VoterStory.org doesn’t tell you:

“By providing information, you consent to and authorize VoterStory.org (and its affiliates), and the voter protection organizations with which VoterStory.org may share such information, to disclose your identity and the other information provided by you and to use your story, including your identity, in any manner VoterStory.org and/or such other organizations deem appropriate in connection with the protection of voter rights.”

Is a non-transparent data protection policy a problem for VoterStory.org? When we participate in networked journalism efforts, what do we expect of our collaborators and contributors? Tom Evslin expressed his concerns about VoterStory.org’s data protection policies, detailing what he needs to know before participating in VoterStory.org’s election day effort. “1. Who are the affiliates of VoterStory.org?; 2. To what organizations will data be sent?; 3. How long will data be kept?; 4. Where is the data being kept?; 5. Roughly, how is the data being safeguarded?; 6. Will any commercial use of the data be made?; and 7. What are the guidelines for the use of the data?”

I asked Prof. Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford’s Chair of Internet Governance and Regulation and a Harvard Law Visiting Professor, about VoterStory.org’s data policy. Zittrain’s scholarship addresses, among other issues, how we can maintain a generative Internet while satisfying our ongoing security concerns.

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Question: Do you have concerns about VoterStory’s loose data protection policy?
Prof. Zittrain: Sure; the privacy policy could better reflect the values that the people building the site clearly embrace. This is some of the risk of boilerplate — a lawyer provides text that maximizes a client website’s flexibility, without regard for the site’s larger purpose, audience, and values.

Question: How could VoterStory.org have done this differently?
Prof. Zittrain: The site creators could explain in the privacy policy why they’re collecting the data, and what they’re hoping to do with it — and what they won’t do with it. They could ask people what level of privacy they want for their names and other identifying information, and perhaps even offer to run interference — to help match up, say, reporters who want to cover a particular election story with people who are interested in having their stories told.

Vital new ideas implemented quickly are likely to have some rough edges. Here is where “brand” can matter — if it’s unambiguous what people and organizations are behind a web site, one can perhaps forgive a few loose ends if those people and organizations are trusted. Compare a university web site to Consumer Reports to a completely unknown organization.

Question: Should organizations and efforts like this be transparent?
Prof. Zittrain: Sure — ideally medium and message would converge. The worst outcome would be that people are driven away from what is otherwise a valuable idea. With luck, the privacy policy can be tweaked in a matter of hours, and the site will be all the stronger, and its users reassured.

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There may be more answers coming from VoterStory.org today, so we’ll see if there are any new developments. While we commend the ideals behind the effort, we would also like to see more transparency. And since we are still formulating our own data disclosure policy, it might be good to know what expectations you have for data protection.

If you regularly participate in distributed journalism efforts, what expectations do you have for data protection? Share your thoughts with us by commenting in the thread below.